Preston Pub Sign Studies The Sir Tom Finney

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Tucked away in the estate areas of Penwortham, Preston is a pub with a name paying tribute to the city’s best known football hero, Sir Tom Finney. There is also a Finney’s Café bar at Preston North End’s football ground, a Tom Finney Way road and a statue of him (in the same pose as the one in this pub sign photo). Few cities honour their star players so thoroughly. Manchester United offers no pub called George Best or Bobby Charlton for example, and Preston does not have pubs named after its other players either. Finney, born in 1922, showed a passion for football early on and first signed up to play for Preston North End when he was only 14. His dad made him complete an industrial apprenticeship before he could commit to the game professionally though. During the war he served with Montgomery in a tank crew in Egypt and Italy. He played football for the army too to keep his skills flowing. He played for England for 13 years in a row, and when invited to transfer to Palermo in Italy for £10,000 he refused. He never served any league team but his beloved Preston. He played until 1960, with a few short comebacks for special one-off games up to 164. The pub sign image, and fountain statue created by sculptor, Peter Hodgkinson, are captures of a famous sports photo of Finney ploughing through water on heavily waterlogged pitch at Fulham’s Stamford Bridge ground in 1956. Finney unveiled the statue himself in 2004, the year his wife, Elsie, died of Alzheimer’s Disease, leading Finney to become a leading campaigner and fund-raiser for awareness of the terrible disease. Finney died in 2014, aged 91. A sign for a true hero of sport and much more besides.